Made by hand: gestural practices for the building of complex concepts in face-to-face, one-on-one learning arrangements

Our study investigates how the hands and body can serve as communicative, cognitive and interactional resources when they are employed in the teaching and learning of complex science and math concepts. We consider how speakers and hearers produce, take up, and re-use gestures to support explanation and conceptual formation in expert-to-non-expert conversation. The study suggests that in face-to-face, one-on-one interaction gesturing plays an important role in facilitating the joint achievement of new conceptual understanding for novice learners. We believe that the gestural practices used to explain complex concepts in informal interactions can be profitably extended to the teaching and learning of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects in other learning arrangements such as the classroom.